The Dal Khalsa has registered its stiff opposition to giving the possession of about 8,400 flats to the migrant labour families settled in the union territory, dubbing the move as "a design to change the demography of Chandigarh into a Hindi-speaking area".
Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh is scheduled to hand over the dwellings to some 6,000-slum-dweller families on his visit here on Saturday.

In a statement here, Dal Khalsa spokesman Kanwarpal Singh also criticised the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), saying the SAD should have objected to the move and strongly conveyed its resentment to the Centre.

"It is ironic that the SAD led by the Badals has failed to realise that the influx of migrants has had a serious socio-economic-cultural ramification on the Sikhs in particular and Punjab in general," Kanwarpal said.

SAD reactsSAD general secretary Prem Singh Chandumajra, however, rebutted the allegation, saying the Akali party had adopted a resolution in this regard for its staunch demand over the Chandigarh's transfer to Punjab at the recently held party presidential elections in Amritsar.

Chandumajra, however, said the SAD did not want to vitiate the atmosphere by making any such move of opposing the handing over the dwellings to the migrant labourers in the UT.

"Though this is a political stunt of the ruling Congress at the Centre with the Lok Sabha elections in less than a year, the SAD does not want to vitiate the otherwise peaceful atmosphere at this juncture," he said.

On a similar move to rehabilitate the Hindi-speaking slum dwellers by the Akali-BJP government in Ludhiana, Chandumajra said the said plan was being carried out as a "continuing plan of the Punjab government to facilitate the underprivileged sections of society at large".